The only member of the 3rd Battalion to win the Victoria Cross during the First World War, John Hamilton was born in Orange, New South Wales on 24 January 1896. He was the son of William Hamilton and his wife Catherine (née Fox).
Details of his education are not recorded, but Hamilton went to work as a teenager for his father, who had a butcher’s business in Penshurst. He served in the militia before enlisting as a private in the Australian Imperial Force on 15 September 1914. Posted to the 3rd Battalion, he sailed for Egypt the following month.
Hamilton took part in the landing on 25 April and went through the early fighting before being evacuated suffering from a bout of influenza at the end of May. He rejoined the 3rd Battalion on 2 June and remained with the unit throughout the August battles before being hospitalised with dysentery on 16 September.
After a spell in England, during which he received his VC, Hamilton proceeded to France with his unit, though not before falling foul of authority. His service record during early 1916 cites a number of misdemeanours. Reported as being ‘absent from camp’ from 8 January until 22 January, he was also charged with ‘using insubordinate language to his superior officer’ and given 168 hours detention and docked twenty-two days’ pay. Two months later, he went absent without leave for three days and was further punished with ninety-six hours’ detention and the forfeiture of eight days’ pay. During the same period he, like many others, lost more pay for being hospitalised suffering from sexually transmitted diseases. However, none of these transgressions appears to have hindered his advancement.
Promoted corporal on 3 May 1916, he fought on the Somme and his services were further recognised by promotion to sergeant on 13 May 1917 and a recommendation for a commission. Following a spell in hospital with influenza in the spring of 1918, Hamilton joined No. 5 Officers Cadet Battalion in Cambridge on 5 July 1918. Thus ended his active war service. Incredibly, during three years of frontline duty there is no record of him ever being wounded. Hamilton was appointed second lieutenant and allotted to general infantry reinforcements on 2 January 1919 and rejoined the 3rd Battalion as a lieutenant on 2 April. Returning to Australia on 26 August, he was demobilised on 12 September 1919.
The butcher’s boy who came home an officer with a Victoria Cross settled at Tempe, Sydney, and took a job as a docker. He continued to work in the port for thirty years, as docker, shipping clerk, storeman and packer. An active member of the Waterside Workers’ Federation, he was Labour nominee for the post of Sydney branch secretary in 1952.
The outbreak of the Second World War had seen him back in uniform. He was given his commissioned rank back and served with the 16th Garrison Battalion in Australia from June 1940 to September 1942. Hamilton served overseas with the 3rd Pioneer Battalion in New Guinea, before transferring to the Australian Labour Companies. In 1944 he joined the Army Labour Service, being promoted captain in October. With his unit, he supported the Australian forces who landed on Bougainville in July 1945. Hamilton returned to Sydney in April 1946 and four months later his second spell of military service was officially terminated.
Jack Hamilton VC, the last survivor of the seven Australians to win the Cross at Lone Pine, died of cerebro-vascular disease in the Repatriation General Hospital, Concord, Sydney, on 27 February 1961. After a private funeral, he was buried in Woronora cemetery. His wife Myrtle died in 1975 and ten years later, on the 70th anniversary of his VC action, his only son Alwyn presented his father’s medals to the Australian War Memorial.
Alfred John Shout, hailed as one of Australia’s greatest heroes of the Gallipoli campaign, was, in fact, a New Zealander by birth. He was born on 8 August 1882 in Wellington, the son of John Shout, a London-born cook, and his Irish wife Agnes (née McGovern). Little is known of his early life. He was still in his teens when he embarked with the New Zealand contingent to fight the Boers.
He served with distinction in the Border Horse, was twice wounded and, on one occasion, reported as killed in action. His gallantry was marked by a mention in dispatches and promotion to sergeant for a deed set out in Army Orders on 23 February 1901 as follows: ‘At Thabaksberg, on 29th January, 1901 – Displayed great courage and assisted greatly in keeping men together. Under a heavy fire he brought out of the firing-line a wounded man of the 17th Battery, RFA, and took him to a place of safety.’
It is possible that Shout remained in South Africa after the war. Certainly, in 1903, he joined the Cape Field Artillery, as a sergeant. He emigrated to Australia in 1907 and settled in the Sydney suburb of Darlington where he worked as a carpenter and joiner. Shout pursued his military interests by joining a militia unit, the 29th Infantry Regiment, otherwise known as the Australian Rifles. A fine shot, Shout was a familiar figure at the Randwick rifle range and was a mainstay of the 29th Infantry Club. Commissioned a second lieutenant in the militia on 16 June 1914, he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on 27 August. By then Shout had married Rose Alice and the couple had a 9-year-old daughter.
Shortly after the outbreak of war the 29th was swallowed up by the newly constituted 1st Battalion, AIF, and Shout was posted as second lieutentant to F Company, commanded by Lt. Cecil Sasse. The battalion embarked for Egypt on 18 October and shortly after its arrival the unit was re-formed into four companies, with Shout becoming a platoon commander in D Company. In February 1915 he was promoted lieutenant and it was with this rank that he landed at Anzac on 25 April.
Shout played a significant part in the confused and costly fighting to secure the beachhead. On the first day he fought a rearguard action on Baby 700 and later that same day he led a mixed party of stragglers to support the thin Australian line on Walker’s Ridge. Two days later, having toiled without a break since the landing, he replaced a wounded officer and held a threatened sector on Walker’s Ridge. One of his men later recorded:
There were only two officers left – Lieutenants Shout and Harrison – and our position was desperate. The gallantry of both was remarkable, but Lieutenant Shout was a hero. Wounded himself several times, he kept picking up wounded men and carrying them out of the firing line. I saw him carry fully a dozen men away. Then another bullet struck him in the arm, and it fell useless by his side. Still he would not go to the rear. ‘I am here with you boys to the finish’, was the only reply he would make. We all thought too, that it was to be a finish for us. The Turks were attacking us in thousands. We were not properly entrenched, and we were hopelessly outnumbered. A little later Lieutentant Shout was wounded again, and fell down. It was cruel to see him. He struggled and struggled until he got to his feet, refusing all entreaties to go to the rear. Then he staggered and fell and tried to rise again. At last some men seized him and carried him away, still protesting.
For his gallant leadership, Shout was awarded the Military Cross. The citation stated:
On 27th April, 1915, during operations near Gaba Tepe, for showing conspicuous courage and ability in organising and leading his men in thick, bushy country under very heavy fire. He frequently had to expose himself to locate the enemy and led a bayonet charge at a critical moment.
Shout was not seriously wounded and was soon back with his unit. On 11 May he was wounded again, leading to a painful wait for information for his wife who felt compelled to write to the army authorities in Sydney on May 28: ‘I shall be greatly obliged if you would inform me where he is at present and also if he is seriously wounded as the suspense of not hearing anything is most trying.’ Again, Shout had been fortunate and, on 29 June, he was mentioned in despatches for his services since the landing. A month later he was promoted captain and a week after that led his men into Lone Pine. The three-day battle which followed was one of the fiercest fought on the peninsula. Judged as a diversionary operation designed to distract Turkish attention from the Allies’ main objective on Chunuk Bair, the attack must be counted a success. However, the Australians paid a fearful price for their victory. More than 2,000 men of the 1st Australian Division were killed, wounded or posted missing – 340
of them from the 1st Battalion. Among those who died none was greatly mourned than Alfred Shout.
Charles Bean, who knew him personally and knew also of the respect for him, paid his own tribute to Australia’s most decorated hero of Gallipoli. He wrote: ‘Shout was one of the gamest officers that ever lived, from the first day ready for any adventure, plunging into the thick of it, light-hearted and laughing …’.
That same remarkable spirit was evoked again nine decades later when, in 2006, Shout’s medals came up for auction. As befitting the magnificent story of valour that lay behind the honours, the price paid by Perth-based media mogul Kerry Stokes for the last privately owned Australian Gallipoli VC group was a then world record 1.2 million Australian dollars. Following the sale, they were donated to the Australian War Memorial for public display, prompting Shout’s grandson, Graham Thomas, to say: ‘To get it on show and get the money, you can’t ask for much more than that. I’m tickled pink.’
C.R.G. BASSETT
Rhododendron Spur, Anzac beach sector, 8–10 August 1915
Cpl. C. Bassett
At first light on 8 August 1915 the commanding heights of Chunuk Bair, overlooking the Anzac beachhead, were seized by a New Zealand battalion, supported by a British New Army unit, without a shot being fired and without the loss of a single man. It was one of the most dramatic coups of the campaign. For a brief moment, it appeared that Sir Ian Hamilton’s bold plans would be crowned by success. From the former Turkish trench on the crest of this strategically important ridge, the men of the Wellington Regiment and the 7th Gloucesters could look back towards the Anzac beachhead, while ahead of them, tantalizingly close, could be seen a ribbon of shimmering blue marking the course of the Narrows, the prime objective of Hamilton’s expeditionary force.
The occupation of the hills above Anzac represented the corner-stone of Hamilton’s August offensive. All the other operations, including those at Suvla Bay, were of secondary importance. The plan to seize them involved two brigade-strength columns exploiting gaps torn in the Turkish lines by a covering force. They were to strike at night, deep into the heart of Turkish territory, in order to be ready to storm the heights at dawn on 7 August. It was an audacious plan, but one made even more hazardous by the maze of gullies and hills which had to be negotiated in darkness.
The right assaulting column was detailed to reach the summit of Chunuk Bair, then thought to be devoid of Turkish troops, by way of Rhododendron Spur, which took its name from the profusion of wild flowers carpeting its slopes. Commanded by Brig. F.E. Johnston, the column consisted of the New Zealand Infantry Brigade, supported by the 26th Indian Mountain Battery and No. 1 Field Company, NZ Engineers. During their march, they were to be joined by another New Zealand battalion.
The force set out from Anzac on the night of 6 August. By daybreak, however, the column was still short of its objective. Although only a handful of Turks had been encountered on the night march, one of the New Zealand units had become lost, resulting in a delay which would prove costly. As the column approached Chunuk Bair on the morning of 7 August, Johnston could see that, contrary to expectation, the heights were occupied. In fact, Johnston’s force vastly outnumbered the few defenders, but there followed a further unaccountable delay before the attack was launched, by which time the Turks had brought up sufficient reinforcements to beat off the assault.
The Auckland Battalion and the 2/10th Gurkhas, a unit which had attached itself to Johnston’s column after losing touch with its own command, were almost annihilated on the open slopes running from the centre of Rhododendron Spur towards Chunuk Bair. Johnston set up his headquarters in a cup-shaped depression about 60 yds wide, within 300 yds of the summit. From this position, later known as the Apex, he set about planning a renewed assault. Unfortunately, although the Apex offered cover from the Turkish-held heights, it presented little room for deploying an attacking force. The ground between Johnston’s position and Chunuk Bair afforded no better protection. Apart from an abandoned Turkish trench 100 yds further along the spur, the slopes were totally devoid of cover.
Yet at 4.15 a.m. the following morning, when the second attack went in, having been preceded by a violent naval bombardment, the New Zealanders advanced unopposed. The men of the Wellington Battalion found the crest of Chunuk Bair deserted, save for a single Turkish machine-gun section. The rest of the garrison had withdrawn to escape the bombardment. For two hours the new occupants were left in splendid isolation. However, after coming under machine-gun fire from the flanks, the Wellingtons’ commanding officer decided to withdraw the bulk of his men from the crest and dig a new trench along the reverse slopes. It was a move which irrevocably altered the course of the fighting, and although the battalion resisted a series of Turkish attacks throughout the morning, their grip on the crest became increasingly precarious.
At Brigade HQ in the Apex, Johnston, who was not in communication with his men on the crest, was growing increasingly alarmed at developments. He therefore decided to send forward a small section from the Divisional Signals Company. Among their number was a small, slim-built Aucklander, who had been working as a bank clerk until war broke out.
Cpl. Cyril Bassett had already survived one close call during the Chunuk Bair operation, when a stray bullet had embedded itself in his boot without touching his foot. On the previous day, he had volunteered to run a telephone forward with the Aucklanders, but the failure of their attack made it a futile gesture. Now Johnston placed him in command of a party of signallers who were to be followed an hour later by another section led by Spr. B.L. Dignan. Their mission involved climbing the exposed slopes of Rhododendron Spur, and braving the Turkish machine-gun and rifle fire being directed from the neighbouring heights, Hill Q and Point 971. The sight which greeted them as they left the Apex could have done little to raise their hopes. The ground ahead was strewn with the bodies of New Zealanders and Gurkhas killed during the previous day’s unsuccessful attack. Fifty years later, Bassett recorded his account of their hazardous journey:
We’d no sooner got under way than … I remember Brigadier Johnson [sic] saying ‘Keep low, keep low’. Well, now I realise why he said that because the fire was coming from our left. If I’d kept down in the slope I’d have been happy. Instead of that I ran into all sorts of trouble and we had to carry this line really in short rushes.
I had a man wounded and I got about three-quarters of the way across, mostly under rifle fire and machine-gun fire and a bit of shrapnel – I think the shrapnel was the worst of the lot – and we ran into a squadron of Mounted Rifles [sic] … They commandeered my phone and held me up for about half an hour. In the meantime, the Brigade had sent another line on practically the same route as these Mounted Rifles [this was the party led by Spr. Dignan]. They arrived without a scratch.
Anyway, being the senior NCO, I sent the man in charge across to the hill and he got to the foot of the hill and ran out of wire. So we caught up with him eventually and then I sent him up the hill, with his name taken, and I got a man named Birkett [Spr. William Arthur Birkett MM], who had been working with me on the line, and he and I stayed behind to straighten up the lines which were laying higgledy-piggledy all over the place. And then about half an hour later, I didn’t time exactly, this chap, who’d brought the second line over, came and reported to me that the line had gone.
Bassett sent the man back to Brigade HQ with an urgent message from the Wellingtons, who were struggling to hold on, while he remained on the exposed slopes to superintend the inevitable line repairs. He recalled:
We were there practically until the morning of August 10th on these lines. Well, what we should have done really was to run out new lines but we didn’t have [any] … All day on the 8th we were working on these lines, mending breaks, and on the 9th we did a bit of mending, but we were really tired. We were really worn out.
One of the signallers who’d been allotted to look after the telephone on the Chunuk Bair was badly wounded. We got that news, and then on the
night of the 9th we laid a new telephone wire across to the Wiltshires, who had relieved our boys, and then we brought this wounded boy in. We couldn’t get a stretcher and we had to bring him in on a blanket – four of us – and he had been wounded badly from the waist downwards … He had been out there a day and a night.
Writing about the action in a letter home dated 23 August, Spr. Dignan was full of praise for Bassett’s leadership. He wrote:
Our wire gave out about 100 yds down the hill from Wgton HQ so I took a message up and reported and then when I got back Bassett … arrived with his party and some more wire so we made a duplicate [line] and Birkett and I took the line on to Wgton HQ … They stopped the Turks and then the Turks started massing somewhere and just then the phone went bung. Colonel Malone [OC Wellingtons] had an important message to go through about this massing so I took it leaving Birkett to take the phone. I sent the operators up while Bassett repaired the line.
… Meanwhile, the two operators [Whittaker and Edwards] had gone up and Bassett and Birkett came back on the spot where the Ak Mtd Rifles [sic] had been and mended the wire under fire and stayed out till early next morning … Total result of all this is that Bassett, Birkett, Whittaker, Edwards, McDermott and I had our names taken by the … Brigade Major. The six was eventually reduced to three with special for Bass as he was mentioned before [Bassett had been cited for bravery on 2 May].
VCs of the First World War Gallipoli Page 24
